Banking behemoth Westpac will cut 132 job cuts from its risk-management, operations and sales divisions, with some of the positions expected to shift offshore to India and The Philippines.
The Financial Services Union confirmed the cuts this week and said 62 would go from the risk division, while 50 positions from operations would be offshored to contract companies Genpact, TATA Consulting Services and Concentrix.
A further 20 cuts from sales were announced to the FSU in January, with the jobs also shifting abroad.
FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said the cuts and Westpac’s offshoring move would hammer staff morale.
“Westpac’s strategy of continually outsourcing jobs to external service providers does nothing for staff morale and sends the message that staff need to toe the line or their jobs could be offshored,” she said.
“Forget loyalty and hard work from its employees. Westpac isn’t interested in building an effective corporate culture that delivers for customers and staff. It’s only interested in generating even greater profits.”
The cuts are small matched to the overall size of the company, which boasts a $91bn market capitalisation and more than 30,000 employees across Australia.
But they follow sharp cuts from 2023 with the financial services firm slashing hundreds of jobs.
A wave of redundancies have hit the financial services sector in recent months as banks move to control costs and protect margins.
NAB, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ all announced substantial cuts last year with the total number of job losses from the “big four” hitting more than 2000.
A Westpac spokesman told NCA NewsWire the bank would provide “tailored support and assistance with career transition” to affected employees.
“We try to keep as many employees in the Westpac Group as we can through retraining and redeployment,” the spokesman said.
“These changes are in head office and operational functions and represent less than half a per cent of our workforce.”
Ms Angrisano said the cuts from the bank’s risk department could expose customers to an elevated “scammer” threat.
“The same day that Westpac notified the FSU about job losses in the risk division, CEO Peter King told the ASX that ‘risk management remains a priority’,” Ms Angrisano said, referencing Mr King’s remarks in Westpac’s financial year 2024 1st quarter earnings release from February 19.
“Westpac is also party to the new Australian Banking Association strategy to cut the numbers of scams hitting bank customers, including limiting payments flowing offshore to risky overseas crypto-currency platforms.
“How on earth does Peter King think Westpac can protect the bank and its customers from the proliferation of scammers when it is cutting so deeply into its risk division?”
Westpac reported a $1.5bn net profit for the three months up to December 31, 2023, which Mr King called a “solid quarter”.
“We’ve grown the franchise and maintained a strong financial position,” he said.
Year-to-date, Westpac’s stock price is up 13.4 per cent.